0:01

Hello and

0:05

welcome to

0:08

another episode

0:12

of Radio

0:15

Warner. The

0:19

day today

0:21

is March 13th

0:24

2025. And this

0:26

is episode 508.

0:28

I am the

0:30

co-host Mark Ames.

0:32

I am in

0:34

the greater Rochester

0:37

area of Northwestern New

0:39

York, soon to be

0:41

a border battleground with

0:43

great neighbors to the

0:46

north. You are listening

0:48

to Radio Warner. Subscribe,

0:50

please, at patreon.com forward

0:53

slash Radio Warner. And

0:55

speaking of Warners, I'm online

0:57

with the Warner John Dolan,

1:00

aka Gary Brechher, in Pulia,

1:02

in the heel of Italy.

1:04

How's it going there, John?

1:06

Pretty good, but I think

1:09

you'd better watch out for

1:11

Irish-American veterans of the Civil

1:13

War. They tend to cause

1:15

trouble around Niagara Falls. I

1:18

don't know if we've done

1:20

a show about it, but

1:22

they actually did stage... an

1:24

armed invasion of Canada, the

1:27

Fenians, and I think they

1:29

won their first battle, but

1:31

you know, after that it was

1:33

not so good. Well, they, uh,

1:36

they battled the British, right?

1:38

I mean, right. Or the

1:40

Ontario militia more like. Okay.

1:42

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, this

1:44

is something maybe we

1:47

should do sometime in the

1:49

near future. What would happen

1:51

if we were to invade? So Greenland

1:54

just held a vote yesterday, and

1:56

Trump and Musk were trying to

1:58

apply a lot of votes. Trump,

2:00

particularly a lot of pressure. You

2:03

know, Greenland, you haven't a vote.

2:05

You could vote to train us.

2:07

It would be beautiful. We'll do

2:09

beautiful things. Very rich. We're a

2:11

big country. And of course, they

2:13

did not vote to trade in

2:15

their free first class Denmark universal

2:17

health care for America's. world's shittiest

2:20

and most expensive health care. I

2:22

mean, I don't know what's going

2:24

on with them, but they didn't

2:26

trade it in. They must be

2:28

absolutely crazy. I know. There was

2:30

a poll of Greenlanders and 85%

2:32

of them, strangely enough, said that

2:34

no way did they want to join

2:37

the US. And then there was a

2:39

certain amount of undecideds. And then 5%

2:41

said that they wouldn't mind considering

2:44

the possibility of joining

2:46

America, which... Which I consider

2:48

a pretty low percentage because

2:50

there's always 5% of people

2:52

who want to wreck

2:54

everything, including themselves, as you would

2:57

say, John, who want to calm

2:59

in air strikes on their own

3:01

neighborhoods. I mean, I feel that way

3:03

kind of frequently. Not as often as

3:05

I did in the old days, but

3:07

you know, I get a little nostalgic

3:10

twinge every now and then

3:12

for the mushroom clouds. And

3:15

I consider it pretty low,

3:17

considering that 14% of Canadians

3:19

said they would be willing

3:22

to entertain being a next,

3:24

or willing to be a next

3:26

by America. Well, I

3:28

can tell you, I think

3:30

what most Canadians would say

3:32

about that. It's like, oh,

3:34

that's Alberta. Or it's, you

3:37

know, everybody who got pissed off

3:39

at... the Margaret Atwood

3:41

crowd in Ontario is

3:43

willing to call it an

3:46

air strike on their neighborhood

3:48

just to shut them up.

3:50

And that's sizable. Yeah. It's

3:53

strange. We're also seeing

3:55

waves of Canadian nationalism

3:57

from the threats.

4:00

That I hadn't seen before and

4:02

Doug Ford who's kind of

4:04

you know the quasi Trump

4:06

of the Trump a of He's

4:08

the governor whatever they call

4:10

the guys the surviving Ford

4:12

brother. Yes. Yeah The same

4:15

one And he's kind of

4:17

taken the lead in it

4:19

since nobody takes anything Justin

4:21

Trudeau says seriously So

4:23

he's kind of taken the lead

4:25

in in fighting back, but Yeah, no,

4:28

14% sounds like we're getting more

4:30

towards American numbers. I think the

4:33

American numbers of willing to call

4:35

in airstrikes is probably closer to

4:37

40% of those willing to bomb

4:40

their own neighborhoods. And I have

4:42

variously been part of that 40%

4:45

at various times in my life.

4:47

I'm not going to say when.

4:49

But don't get me started.

4:52

Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, that the

4:54

vote did not go very

4:56

well for the. Trump expansionists

4:58

and I don't expect it to

5:00

go their way for Canada. I

5:02

don't, you know, the only way

5:05

to take any of these places

5:07

if there's, if the Trumpists are

5:09

serious is through invasion. It's not

5:11

going to happen through democratic means.

5:14

Anything close to democratic means and

5:16

they're not going to invade, I

5:18

don't think, so. No. They'd have

5:20

to have a global war breakout

5:22

and occupy them for their own

5:24

good and then not leave. But,

5:26

you know, the U.S. Empire perfected

5:29

a way of doing that without

5:31

offending most of

5:33

the countries involved. Except

5:36

Okinawa, for example,

5:38

because they couldn't keep

5:40

the Marines in control

5:42

on Okinawa, but most

5:44

of the countries, the

5:46

U.S. presence never left,

5:49

and people were sort of

5:51

more or less grudgingly okay

5:53

with it. Yeah, Trump got rid

5:56

of the soft power, the whole

5:58

soft power arsenal. a lot

6:00

of that was, we've talked about

6:02

this, was aimed at undermining

6:04

the kind of the magga

6:07

political project indirectly or

6:09

directly, and so the whole

6:11

thing had to go, apparently.

6:13

But I do expect we should just

6:15

be on the record. Although

6:17

there are some conservatives who

6:20

just genuinely do oppose all

6:22

of that regime change and

6:24

interventionism, my guess is for

6:27

Trump himself and Rubio

6:29

and the other sort of the

6:31

top level of the magga, they're

6:33

going to revive that, but it's

6:35

just that the soft power is

6:37

going to be the sort of

6:40

soft power that meshes nicely with

6:42

maga and, you know, neo-conservative

6:44

or not, I don't know

6:46

what you call it, whatever their right-wing

6:48

values are, so that the soft

6:50

power being spread around the world

6:53

is going to be the sort

6:55

of soft power that boosts.

6:57

you know, Trumpism at home

6:59

and in allied countries

7:01

as well. That's my guess.

7:04

So today we wanted to catch

7:06

up again because so much is

7:08

going on on a few. World

7:11

of War items, a lot of stuff

7:13

going on. We also, we have coming

7:15

up, we're going to be doing, John's

7:17

going to do an episode on the

7:19

British Navy Mutiny in 1798. I know

7:21

people have been excited about that. We

7:23

will be doing that soon, and we

7:25

have some other great stuff coming up,

7:27

but let's, we got to get this

7:29

stuff out of the way because a

7:31

lot's going on. So let's start off

7:33

with the Columbia grad student

7:35

Green Card holder Mahamood Halil,

7:38

who was... disappeared basically

7:40

by ice agents and

7:42

the White House Trump

7:44

administration posted this

7:47

gloating photo saying Shalom

7:49

which is all these things are

7:51

just going to be doing

7:53

wonders for diaspora Jews you

7:56

know Israel loves this but

7:58

all this is bad for American

8:01

Jews, diaspora Jews to be.

8:03

Yeah, a lot of that

8:05

are saying that now, like,

8:07

you know, this is just

8:09

a bummer. Yeah. So apparently,

8:11

there's kind of a fight

8:13

over who actually set Kuleleup,

8:15

who basically ratted him out.

8:18

A lot of people think

8:20

that the infamous shide Davidai,

8:22

who's this Columbia. I don't

8:24

know, business professor, weirdo, who

8:26

stocks all the kids all

8:28

the time and tries to

8:30

film himself getting victimized and

8:32

tries to always get people

8:35

arrested or in trouble. Either

8:37

him, he's a very strange,

8:39

unbalanced character. And then there's

8:41

Batar, this weird, Kahonist group

8:43

that we talked about, I

8:45

think, briefly on the show

8:47

before, because these were the

8:49

guys who tried pinning a...

8:52

Pager on Norman and Norm

8:54

Finkelstein. They also have taken

8:56

credit, I think, for Koleel's

8:58

just getting arrested and disappeared.

9:00

They were founded, of course,

9:02

by or their executive directors,

9:04

Ross Glick, who the New

9:06

York Post had called the

9:09

revenge porn king. Great guy.

9:11

Just lovely people, all of

9:13

them, yeah. One thing that

9:15

was kind of funny about

9:17

this, you know, first of

9:19

all, as a lot of

9:21

people pointed out, the whole

9:23

sort of Trump online infrastructure

9:26

was very self-righteous about being

9:28

for free speech against wokeness.

9:30

We're the ones against censorship,

9:32

you know, it's, it's wokesters

9:34

and liberals who are all.

9:36

doing all the censoring and

9:38

there's obviously some truth to

9:40

that and all of them

9:43

to a T or 99%

9:45

of them except for people

9:47

like Greenwold are absolutely supporting

9:49

this and they're saying oh

9:51

this is different this isn't

9:53

when he comes out, you

9:55

know, in favor of or

9:57

against the genocide and protesting

10:00

for Palestine. This is actually

10:02

terrorism. This is different. It's

10:04

always different, you know, when

10:06

you want to stop. I

10:08

saw somebody saying, oh, no,

10:10

no, they disrupted classes like,

10:12

are you kidding? You know,

10:14

you know what happened when

10:17

somebody disrupted classes? I remember

10:19

that the Revolutionary Communist Youth

10:21

Brigade marching and with... Dows,

10:23

I swear to God, Dows,

10:25

which they held at Port

10:27

Arms into classrooms and it

10:29

was like a board photo

10:31

op for a while and

10:34

then they marched out and

10:36

everybody got back to the

10:38

class. Yeah, they were trying

10:40

to get arrested. Nobody bothered

10:42

with them by that time.

10:44

Yeah. So a lot of

10:46

the... supporters of the, they

10:48

loved, I mean, they didn't,

10:51

they were gloating, they loved

10:53

it, this was pure red

10:55

meat. And, you know, people

10:57

were saying, like, there was

10:59

an account and wokeness, I

11:01

think it's run by Jack

11:03

Basobiac, gloating over it too,

11:05

and people like, you know,

11:08

this is ultra wokeness. I

11:10

mean, you, you, like Israel

11:12

is your woke. But, you

11:14

know, as I think we've

11:16

been trying to say, came

11:18

out of the right. I

11:20

think we have a better

11:22

grasp. I mean, it was

11:25

many years ago, but I,

11:27

it's still in me, like

11:29

I still know in my

11:31

guts what's going on. What

11:33

they always meant was we

11:35

want to stop you when

11:37

it says, and wokeness is

11:39

everything I hate and everyone

11:42

I hate and end everything

11:44

I hate. That's it. The

11:46

grudge predates any particular argument

11:48

they advanced. in favor of

11:50

the grudge and all those

11:52

arguments are disposable. If something

11:54

they like happens and it

11:56

seems to contradict... some of

11:59

their stated values. In fact,

12:01

when, you know, New York

12:03

Times writers and readers act

12:05

surprised at this, you have

12:07

to wonder, are they that

12:09

dense or are they just

12:11

pretending? I think they're scared

12:13

and so they want to

12:16

pretend they don't really understand

12:18

what's going on. It genuinely

12:20

scares them and the reason

12:22

it scares them is because

12:24

they know that they should

12:26

stand up. But they're afraid

12:28

this maybe you wouldn't be

12:30

surprised how many people are

12:33

afraid of standing up for

12:35

him especially in academia like

12:37

it's I posted a tweet

12:39

in fact Or our Facebook

12:41

post about when I actually

12:43

heard Conveyed to me in

12:45

deep seriousness by someone who

12:47

really did have my best

12:50

interest at heart, but finally

12:52

decided Look, you're out of

12:54

control, you've got to, he

12:56

said, nobody wants trouble. And

12:58

he said this in this

13:00

deeply serious way. You're talking

13:02

about with you, or are

13:04

you talking about the Columbia

13:07

journalism professor? No, I'm talking

13:09

about with me. Okay, wow.

13:11

Yeah, well, because this was

13:13

just reported a Columbia journalism

13:15

professor telling students that basically

13:17

their only option. was to

13:19

censor themselves. And this is

13:21

a guy who's a staff

13:24

writer at the New Yorker,

13:26

and that no one was

13:28

really going to come to

13:30

their aid. He said, if

13:32

you have a social media

13:34

page, make sure it is

13:36

not filled with commentary on

13:38

the Middle East, unquote. He

13:41

told the gathering in Pulitzer

13:43

Hall. Oh my God. I

13:45

mean, yeah, that's the state

13:47

of. These people ultimately like

13:49

they were so loud and

13:51

boisterous and self-righteous in Trump

13:53

won because They knew he

13:55

was weak. He was, you

13:58

know, his presidency was pretty

14:00

weak. He had, he didn't

14:02

have the part, his own

14:04

party behind him. The whole,

14:06

you know, the intelligence agencies

14:08

were, were, were aligned with

14:10

the centrist and the Democrats

14:12

saying that he was a

14:14

Russian puppet. So they felt

14:17

tough going into press conferences

14:19

and making it look bad

14:21

and then tweeting about how

14:23

they're victims of censorship. worshiped

14:25

Anna Polzka, you know, when

14:27

she basically gave her life

14:29

to try to publish what

14:31

she thought of as the

14:34

truth. But Serena Shim, another

14:36

journalist trying to cover the

14:38

victory of the YPG in

14:40

northern Syria, was killed by

14:42

Turkish intelligence. That was even

14:44

more thoroughly shut down because...

14:46

She was killed by one

14:48

of our allies who in

14:51

fact drove a truck right

14:53

into her car in the

14:55

streets of, where was it

14:57

I think, commissionally maybe, a

14:59

town just over the border

15:01

in Turkey. Then we even

15:03

have national public radio, NPR,

15:05

which is, you know, the

15:08

voice of liberal, higher educated

15:10

America. They were just... somebody

15:12

leaked this to the semaphore

15:14

guy who does media Max

15:16

Taney does some good stuff

15:18

that they the executives Disweighted

15:20

one of its most visible

15:22

gay employees from attending a

15:25

corporate LGBTQ pride event because

15:27

the Trump administration was putting

15:29

pressure on the broadcaster and

15:31

they didn't want to be

15:33

seen as being woke It's

15:35

getting paid. I thought that

15:37

was like Yeah. Somewhat hands

15:39

off among the American elite

15:42

by this point. But I

15:44

guess not. anything to be

15:46

rolled back. They're selling out

15:48

and this is liberals for

15:50

you and this is again

15:52

one thing I can say

15:54

the big difference between the

15:56

right and liberals and mulata

15:59

the left is that the

16:01

right sticks by through thick

16:03

and thin it's its side

16:05

and the liberals definitely don't

16:07

and especially now as liberals

16:09

are the party of the

16:11

status quo. They'll sell out

16:13

everybody to hold on to

16:16

their piece of the status

16:18

quo and yeah, and it's

16:20

it's a smaller piece and

16:22

they know that and they're

16:24

quite comfortable with that because

16:26

it's still a piece I

16:28

mean that kind of explains

16:30

what happened With the Democratic

16:33

Party voting to censure one

16:35

of their own who dared

16:37

to speak up against Trump.

16:39

Yep Somebody pointed out as

16:41

well that when You know

16:43

when when Mahmoud Khalil was

16:45

disappeared all of these apologists

16:47

and supporters Online were saying

16:50

yeah, it's because he supported

16:52

terrorism He did this because

16:54

of terrorism. It's not for

16:56

speech and then the Trump

16:58

administration came out said no,

17:00

no, it has nothing to

17:02

do with anything. He did

17:04

illegal. It's what he said

17:07

We're doing this because we

17:09

don't like them. They they

17:11

were very explicit Yeah, that

17:13

was, and even that is,

17:15

it seems like malignity for

17:17

its own sense, but no,

17:19

it sets a very broad

17:21

precedent. Like, again, as you

17:24

say, it's like, what are

17:26

you going to do about

17:28

it? We don't like this

17:30

guy. He's gone. What are

17:32

you going to do about

17:34

it? Well, if there's a,

17:36

but, no, no, you don't

17:38

understand. We just don't like

17:41

him. He's gone. What are

17:43

you going to do about

17:45

it? And as you say,

17:47

crickets. And, you know, who's

17:49

supporting it, the Anti-Defamation League,

17:51

a lot of Israelis, a

17:53

lot of hardcore Zionists. And

17:55

what is... Croy Robin just

17:58

pointed this out and then

18:00

we'll get on to some

18:02

more stuff. So Trump is

18:04

citing is apparently basing this

18:06

or the legality of it

18:08

on the 1952 Immigration and

18:10

Nationality Act, which is one

18:12

of those laws like the

18:15

McCarran Act that were passed

18:17

in the high McCarthy era.

18:19

Yeah, you just get the

18:21

date and you can realize

18:23

what's happening. And at that

18:25

time. this law was passed

18:27

to get rid of lefties

18:29

and a lot of lefties

18:32

were Jewish immigrants including Holocaust

18:34

survivors. And so at that

18:36

time Jewish groups were very

18:38

against it. The bill was

18:40

called the McCarran-Walter Act and

18:42

Francis Walter who was one

18:44

of the sponsors of that

18:46

bill said one of the

18:49

goals in passing it was

18:51

quote to expose the Jewish

18:53

influence on American politics and

18:55

culture. And now you have

18:57

these and the ADL at

18:59

that time. said it was

19:01

an example of the worst

19:03

kind of legislation discriminatory and

19:06

abusive of American concepts and

19:08

ideals and today they're completely

19:10

in support of using that

19:12

to disappear or imprison a

19:14

legal resident Mahmoud Koleo and

19:16

it well there will be

19:18

more there will be more

19:20

of this and you know

19:23

unfortunately we just don't have

19:25

any opposition in this country

19:27

either. I don't know. I've

19:29

read stories in the establishment

19:31

press which suggests the Democrats

19:33

are playing a deep game.

19:35

But every time you hear

19:37

that, it's a deep game.

19:40

You know, it's five-dimensional chess

19:42

or whatever. It turns out

19:44

no. It was just cowardice.

19:46

It was just stupidity. Cowardice

19:48

and I think it's pretty

19:50

clear. The Democrat donor class

19:52

and the sort of the

19:54

party network elites, they support

19:57

a lot of this. I

19:59

mean, they supported the whole

20:01

police crackdown on anti- Palestine

20:03

protesters. They blame it. anti-Palestinian,

20:05

I'm sorry, anti-Palestinian, anti-genocide protesters,

20:07

pro-Palestinian. They blame them for

20:09

losing the election. Yeah. You know,

20:11

they are pissed that their base has

20:14

turned against them on Israel.

20:16

They're very pissed about it

20:18

because they see that as

20:20

a big problem, because that puts

20:23

distance between their base and their

20:25

donors. And so I think they

20:27

support it. They know it's not.

20:30

politique to support it

20:32

publicly, but the Democrats,

20:34

the so-called opposition, put

20:37

together a letter, a public

20:39

letter, to oppose, you know, in

20:41

defense of Mahmoud Khalil, and

20:43

only 14 Congress people

20:46

signed it. Only 14

20:48

Democrats. I mean, although you do

20:50

have to spare a hostile thought

20:52

for all the free speech libertarians on

20:54

the right who also didn't sign it,

20:56

I mean. I can't say that for

20:58

sure, but I'm willing to bet that

21:00

maybe one or two of them signed

21:03

it. Maybe not. Well, this was Congress. No,

21:05

yeah, it's a good question. I don't

21:07

know. I think maybe this was meant

21:09

to be a Democrat thing. I mean,

21:11

I wonder if Thomas Massey, where he

21:13

is on this, I don't know. He's

21:15

the sort of the new Ron Paul.

21:17

He's actually pretty good on a lot

21:19

of things. Yeah, sometimes he says good

21:21

things. He's smart. I'm sure his domestic

21:23

politics. I'm sure his domestic politics would

21:26

be pretty awful. He's pretty much down

21:28

the line, libertarian, on anything to

21:30

do with empire and, you know,

21:32

tax on privacy. So I

21:34

don't know. Yeah. So what did, what

21:36

did, what did, what was that

21:38

line by Soljanitzin in?

21:41

I've been quoting him lately,

21:43

not because I think we're, you

21:45

know, about to be victimized

21:47

by a Bolshevik revolution,

21:50

but it just some of his

21:52

lines are pretty good. again

21:54

from the red wheel. It

21:56

was he's kind of channeling

21:59

the mind. of one of the

22:01

SRs or Bolsheviks. And this

22:03

is like after 1905, after

22:06

the crackdown starts, by

22:08

Stolipin, and he says it

22:10

was, I don't know, a terrible

22:12

age, a vile age, an age of

22:14

reptiles. It really feels something

22:17

like that. Anyways, moving on

22:19

to Ukraine, because this has

22:22

been a pretty big story.

22:24

And it was kind of

22:26

quashed. I think they're finally.

22:29

talking about it, but

22:31

this the curse the big

22:33

curse bulge which Ukraine

22:35

carved out last August

22:37

to great fanfare in

22:39

the West a lot of great

22:42

press Cheers no

22:44

particular strategic reason

22:46

behind it. No

22:48

grab a bunch of Russian

22:51

territory that was lightly

22:53

defended, sort of like, you know,

22:55

again, like the hard cave, but

22:58

that made a lot more sense,

23:00

because that was Ukrainian territory. Yeah,

23:02

they took about 500 square miles,

23:04

so this was a huge amount of

23:07

territory for, you know, for this

23:09

war and for Ukraine to take. I

23:11

mean, it was very lightly guarded, and

23:13

it did cause a headache. The

23:15

strategic goals as far as we

23:17

could see, well, we all know

23:19

the real strategic goal was. to get

23:22

good PR because the Ukraine war

23:24

had been nothing but a bummer

23:26

and it was they were falling off

23:28

the map. They were no longer the

23:31

bell of the NATO ball and they

23:33

were trying to make themselves

23:35

look viable again. And in that

23:37

sense, in the PR sense, it

23:40

definitely worked for a good month

23:42

or two. There were other goals

23:44

like seize and hold territory to

23:47

trade during a peace deal. so

23:49

that they could hold it and

23:51

trade it. I always thought that

23:53

was absurd. There was no way

23:55

Russia with Putin was going to

23:57

stop the war until he took back

23:59

all. of the course of land. It

24:01

was, you know, it's just, it

24:03

would not fit in with

24:06

everything we've seen, the sort

24:08

of the strategy in psychology.

24:10

Another theory was to get

24:12

some POWs, that sort of

24:14

worked. A brief morale booster,

24:16

yeah, that worked briefly, but

24:18

the cost has been enormous

24:20

to Ukraine. I mean, the

24:22

Russians were able to kind of

24:24

surround and sanitize Cordenoff this

24:27

bulge within a few weeks.

24:29

so that it didn't expand

24:32

any further. And they kind

24:34

of turned it into a

24:36

killing zone. And of- That's

24:38

what happens with pockets. Yeah.

24:41

Especially when, as a lot

24:43

of pro-Ukraine mainstream

24:45

news sources have said, the

24:48

Trump administration

24:50

cut off all intelligence.

24:52

Their excuse is, well, we

24:55

cut off intelligence, well, we

24:57

cut off intelligence, I'm not

24:59

sure that would really explain

25:02

this complete collapse. No, no,

25:04

no, no. So yeah, apparently,

25:06

you know, there were some

25:09

North Korean troops introduced

25:12

there. Now the propaganda

25:14

we get is that there were

25:16

between 10 and 15,000 and

25:18

that half of them apparently were

25:21

killed or wounded. And

25:23

despite that of the

25:25

battlefield not being littered

25:27

with bodies, They were, apparently,

25:29

they came up with a

25:31

couple of fake North Koreans

25:34

to try to prove that

25:36

they existed. And then I think

25:38

they eventually came up with

25:40

two that a lot more

25:42

people said, well, this could be

25:44

real two POWs that seemed a

25:46

bit more valid. My own take

25:49

on the North Korean thing is

25:51

I think there's a kernel of

25:53

truth to it. and that has

25:55

just been massively blown out of

25:57

proportion. I mean, it's very, very

25:59

rare that... any operation puts

26:01

50% of your troops into the

26:03

casualty corner? I mean, that's

26:06

a last suicide stand statistic. Yeah.

26:08

There was so much bullshit

26:10

coming out about it. Like

26:12

for while the Ukrainians were saying

26:14

the reason we're not taking any

26:17

of them is because every single

26:19

one of them has been instructed,

26:21

has been robotically programmed. to blow

26:24

themselves up with a massive grenade

26:26

so that there isn't even a

26:28

chunk left of them. And that's

26:30

why, even though we've come across

26:33

thousands of bodies, like they've all

26:35

been blown to bits, so there

26:37

was a lot of bullshit like

26:40

that. But that said, I heard not

26:42

even just, you know, from various new

26:44

sources I follow, but even from

26:46

some people I knew in Russia who went

26:48

near the war zone that, you know, a

26:51

lot of people were talking about

26:53

North Koreans. being there, North

26:55

Koreans, basically testing out assaults.

26:57

That doesn't mean it definitely happened, but

26:59

I do trust those sources. They've been

27:01

pretty right to me in the past.

27:04

So I, like I said, I think

27:06

there's a kernel of truth, not

27:08

to the casualty figures, but I

27:10

just think there's a kernel of

27:12

truth to the whole story. I

27:14

just think it's massively exaggerated. North

27:16

Korea is a pretty ruthless regime.

27:19

And one thing that really...

27:21

can't be taught so much

27:23

as combat experience. Yes. And

27:26

they can't really do it,

27:28

except in special operations

27:30

on the South Korean

27:32

border, because, you know,

27:34

yeah, nuclear Holocaust, you

27:36

know, makes my life

27:38

a living hell. But

27:40

they can try some

27:42

troops out, try some

27:44

different weapons out techniques.

27:46

Yeah, which I think

27:48

is what happened. In

27:50

any event, the Ukrainians

27:53

put a lot of their best

27:56

forces who were

27:58

frustrated being... stuck in

28:00

trench, in just, you

28:03

know, attritional trench warfare

28:05

that was going badly. So

28:07

they put a lot of

28:09

these guys into the Kursk

28:11

operation and a lot of

28:13

really good equipment. And slowly,

28:15

the Russians were eating it away,

28:17

chunk by chunk. But really, in

28:19

the last few weeks, it has

28:22

been collapsing at a much

28:24

faster pace. And I started

28:26

seeing video and images coming

28:29

out of... Ukraine occupied course

28:31

that showed that there's one

28:33

main road that goes to

28:35

sooja, sooja is the main town

28:37

in this pocket that that

28:40

Ukraine held, and sooja has

28:42

strategic value because it's

28:44

also an important gas

28:46

pipeline transit point. So

28:48

they really wanted to

28:50

hold on to sooja.

28:52

And I saw image, you know, video

28:54

and pictures of this roads

28:56

that they used to deliver.

28:59

logistics equipment and people

29:01

back and forth and take out

29:03

wounded. And the roads were just

29:05

full of blown up, burned out,

29:07

armor and regular vehicles

29:10

that they used to try to

29:12

outrun the drones. They've been getting

29:14

picked off by drones and the

29:16

Russians really advanced to

29:19

another level with drone

29:21

warfare, particularly in Korsk. And

29:23

we're able to pretty much neutralize

29:25

the high Mars. I mean, they figured

29:27

out the High Mars, the High Mars are

29:30

still very effective, but the Russians

29:32

did like massively reduce the

29:34

effectiveness of the High Mars going

29:36

back even two years. I think this

29:39

is one of the reasons

29:41

that the Americans started getting

29:43

wary about giving their best

29:45

equipment to the Ukrainians because

29:47

it was getting figured out. But

29:49

the roads were just that dangerous.

29:51

I remember, I think it was

29:53

a German television crew just a few

29:56

weeks ago. went with

29:58

some Ukraine. They met

30:00

up sort of in the

30:02

Sumi Oblast in the north

30:04

of Ukraine on the border

30:06

with Kursk, and then they

30:08

went in two cars with

30:10

a bunch of troops in

30:12

the two cars to go

30:14

into occupied sooja. This is

30:17

still in the pocket was

30:19

much larger to do some

30:21

reporting from within. And they

30:23

got attacked by drones in

30:25

the middle of the night.

30:27

And one of the cars

30:29

got into an accident trying,

30:31

I think it got hit

30:33

partly by a drone. and

30:35

the car got taken out.

30:37

And so the journalist in

30:39

that car fled into the

30:41

woods and was just terrified

30:43

and they couldn't do a

30:45

rescue mission for that journalist

30:47

until the next day. The

30:49

other car turned around and

30:51

went back into Ukraine. And

30:53

you see in that video

30:55

from a few weeks ago

30:57

just how much equipment had

31:00

already been taken out. And

31:02

what happened a few days

31:04

ago, about five or six

31:06

days ago, I guess from

31:08

the time we're recording this,

31:10

there was this incredible operation.

31:12

And you know. wherever you

31:14

stand on Russia, it's an

31:16

illegal invasion. They're in the

31:18

wrong for invading Ukraine and

31:20

all that. But this was

31:22

an amazing operation that Russian

31:24

forces did. They basically did

31:26

a tunnel rat, a sewer

31:28

rat operation to get into

31:30

Sujah. They trained their forces

31:32

to crawl in this gas

31:34

pipeline. which was about one

31:36

and a half meters high.

31:38

They had to crawl for

31:40

15 kilometers. I think it

31:43

took a few days. They

31:45

first had to turn off

31:47

everything cleared of methane and

31:49

then pump in oxygen. And

31:51

they also put provisions at

31:53

different points and did practicing

31:55

along the pipeline. And then

31:57

these guys, you know, made

31:59

their way over a couple

32:01

of days. And you would

32:03

have had to camp out

32:05

in the camp out. Yep.

32:07

In the tunnel, wow. Yep.

32:09

And then they popped up.

32:11

up in sooja and surprised

32:13

the Ukrainians and they timed

32:15

it as they popped out

32:17

with an assault from about

32:19

three different angles into sooja

32:21

and the Ukrainian forces completely

32:23

collapsed what were there and

32:26

so the Russians were able

32:28

to take so at this

32:30

point there's nothing really a

32:32

value being held by the

32:34

Ukrainians and I think the

32:36

Russians are mostly doing clean

32:38

up at this point and

32:40

Putin is now talking about

32:42

seizing a sort of buffer

32:44

area in the sumioblast of

32:46

Ukraine. But yeah, that's that's

32:48

that's terrifying, I think. Yeah,

32:50

I mean, the impact of

32:52

drones on armored vehicles clearly

32:54

has to be thought through

32:56

by people designing vehicles and

32:58

and methods of attack over

33:00

the next decade because you

33:02

can't armor a lot of

33:04

vehicles to resist drones, especially

33:07

when they attack from above

33:09

where most armored vehicles have

33:11

their lightest covering. You have

33:13

to protect the two parts

33:15

that are very difficult to

33:17

defend the roof and the

33:19

tires or treads. They're really,

33:21

you can build a tank

33:23

that will resist a lot

33:25

of weapons, anti-tank weapons, but

33:27

as Ukraine found out in

33:29

the last attempt at an

33:31

offensive, you can't really build

33:33

a tank that will resist

33:35

all anti-tank mines because they

33:37

can just build them as

33:39

big as they want. And

33:41

you can't design. rapid advance

33:43

vehicles that have you know

33:45

armor against 7.6 millimeter ammunition

33:47

that will also resist a

33:50

drone. You know, both sides

33:52

in this war have really

33:54

rapidly innovated in drone tech

33:56

and drone warfare and electronic

33:58

anti-drawn warfare. It's been a

34:00

sort of rapid Darwinian evolution.

34:02

Yeah. But one thing I

34:04

think if we haven't mentioned

34:06

it before, which we may

34:08

have, you should all read.

34:10

a Phil K. Dick's story,

34:12

third variant. Yes, yeah. But

34:14

one thing the Russians came

34:16

up with, or at least

34:18

fielded last, late last summer,

34:20

and I think if I

34:22

remember right, it was first

34:24

really fielded, so in the

34:26

fall, in response to Ukraine

34:28

taking that course bulge, was

34:30

a fiber optic drone. So

34:33

it's, it can't be jammed

34:35

because it's on a wire.

34:37

It's on this really super

34:39

thin wire that's really really

34:41

long and so they were

34:43

able to get you know

34:45

fire control over the roads.

34:47

Well first they were able

34:49

to chew away more quickly

34:51

without taking big casualties on

34:53

their own side, chew away

34:55

at the course bulge and

34:57

then get fire control over

34:59

the one main road in

35:01

from further away than than

35:03

normally and really with devastating

35:05

effect. And they still, as

35:07

far as I know, the

35:09

Ukrainians still haven't really, like

35:11

the Ukrainians have been complaining,

35:13

as have the NATO world,

35:16

about we got to do

35:18

something about these fiber optic

35:20

drones, because there's nothing, it's

35:22

hard, it's very hard to

35:24

counteract them, unlike drones that

35:26

are working off a frequency

35:28

or GPS, whatever. Well, yeah,

35:30

I mean, this started with

35:32

the T-O-W missile, it unwinds

35:34

a long, very thin wire.

35:36

And yeah, you can't interrupt

35:38

the signal because the signal

35:40

is coming over from the

35:42

wire. So Soviet doctrine was

35:44

pretty simple. probably would have

35:46

been effective. It was find

35:48

the launcher and blow it

35:50

up because if you can

35:52

disrupt the missile before it

35:54

hits you it probably will

35:57

veer off. So I don't

35:59

know if it's the army

36:01

doctrine but Marine Corps doctrine

36:03

anticipated a 90% casualty rate

36:05

on T-O-W launcher crews. Yeah,

36:07

because it's pretty straight, right?

36:09

The line on the wire

36:11

is pretty straight, so it's

36:13

kind of easier to find

36:15

where it came from. The

36:17

thing about these drones is,

36:19

like they'll spin around and

36:21

up and down trees. The

36:23

fact that its wire doesn't

36:25

stop it from maneuvering as

36:27

if it's not on wire.

36:29

I don't fully get how

36:31

it's done. I would imagine

36:33

sometimes it gets tangled, but

36:35

this is a pretty, a

36:37

lot of it's kind of

36:40

forested area, and these drones

36:42

nevertheless work really work really

36:44

well. Well, I think we've

36:46

both seen a very, very

36:48

terrifying video of a Russian

36:50

soldier in this case, trying

36:52

to clamber through a mass

36:54

of timber and wreckage just

36:56

to get away from a

36:58

drone. And it gets him

37:00

eventually. And it looks like

37:02

the gamer who's operating the

37:04

drone is having fun doing

37:06

it. And you see that

37:08

from both sides. You see

37:10

that with Russians doing that

37:12

to Ukraine. Hey, I hate

37:14

this war. But Samuel Bendet,

37:16

a friend of the show,

37:18

previous guest, who's a real

37:20

expert on Russian and Ukrainian

37:23

drone warfare, he did a

37:25

thread quoting from a Russian

37:27

military blogger who talked about

37:29

the role that drones played

37:31

in basically collapsing this coarse

37:33

bulge. I want to read

37:35

just a little bit of

37:37

it here. It's kind of

37:39

interesting. He says here, you

37:41

know, as their troops are

37:43

moving, getting towards Suja in

37:45

the village of Novangoya, there's

37:47

video footage appeared from the

37:49

Sumi... a highway which I

37:51

talked about with a bunch

37:53

of burnt out Ukrainian equipment,

37:55

then the information field exploded

37:57

with Operation Truba, Truba's pipeline

37:59

pipe, so that means the

38:01

operation of the special forces

38:03

going through the pipeline. To

38:06

summarize it can be said

38:08

that the Russian army has

38:10

mastered a tactical technique of

38:12

quote isolating the battlefield, unquote.

38:14

By modern means and modern

38:16

conditions with the help of

38:18

drones, the supply of the

38:20

Ukrainian forces. was cut off

38:22

and they had no options

38:24

but to retreat. A de

38:26

facto cauldron was created for

38:28

the Ukrainians, which was closed

38:30

not by living soldiers but

38:32

by robots, which sharply reduced

38:34

our losses, did not allow

38:36

Ukrainians to counterattack at the

38:38

moment of the cauldron's clothes,

38:40

and it was possible to

38:42

greatly thin out their battle

38:44

formations during their escape, almost

38:47

completely destroy their armored vehicles

38:49

and transport. And it was

38:51

due to the quantity and

38:53

quality of... their drones. And

38:55

he said a lot has

38:57

changed even since 2023. And

38:59

these were good Ukrainian forces.

39:01

I saw where the commanding

39:03

general, Gdasimov of the Russians,

39:05

claimed that 41% of Ukrainian

39:07

armored equipment that's been destroyed

39:09

in I guess, I don't

39:11

know, the last couple months,

39:13

maybe longer, so the last

39:15

couple months, 41% of that

39:17

was just in the Corsic

39:19

bulge. So this has been

39:21

very, you know, he might

39:23

be exaggerating, but you can

39:25

just see from the pictures,

39:27

it's been a very costly

39:30

PR exercise for a while.

39:32

And I think the collapse

39:34

of the Corsic, you know,

39:36

bowls and adventure, whatever you

39:38

want to call it, played

39:40

a big role in Ukraine,

39:42

kind of changing, Kuzalinsky, changing

39:44

their position on a ceasefire.

39:46

with Trump and actually turn

39:48

around and say, no, actually,

39:50

we want a 30-day ceasefire.

39:52

And then Zelenski changed that

39:54

position just, you know, in

39:56

the last couple days while

39:58

out in Saudi Arabia with

40:00

Mark Arubio, Secretary of State.

40:02

And it was actually, from

40:04

a PR point of view,

40:06

it was probably a smart

40:08

move because it aligns Zelenski

40:10

now with what Trump wants.

40:13

Trump wants a ceasefire. He

40:15

wants parties to... to give

40:17

up a lot and he

40:19

wants the ceasefire so he

40:21

has that notch in his

40:23

belt. And Ukraine has gone

40:25

from being the holdout to

40:27

now being the ones that

40:29

actually agreed to a ceasefire.

40:31

And now, and then of

40:33

course every single, there was

40:35

like a, the ball is

40:37

in Russia's court. This was

40:39

like the headline all over,

40:41

everybody's tagline, but you know,

40:43

I guess it's true. And

40:45

Putin has come out and

40:47

said. You know, he doesn't

40:49

oppose it. He's interested. He

40:51

wants more details and he

40:53

wants to add some conditions

40:56

to the ceasefire. But I'm

40:58

not really sure how it

41:00

could hold because Russia went

41:02

to war to make deep

41:04

political changes in Ukraine and

41:06

NATO. And Russia didn't go

41:08

to war to get a

41:10

ceasefire. So and especially because

41:12

they're winning. You know, the

41:14

deal that they're going to

41:16

demand today in 2025, since

41:18

the war has gone so

41:20

much better for them in

41:22

the last two and a

41:24

half years than in the

41:26

first half year, it's not

41:28

going to be a kind

41:30

of deal that's going to

41:32

go over well in Ukraine.

41:34

So now it's... I can't

41:37

quite remember. You know this

41:39

much better than I do.

41:41

Did Ukraine, if I recall

41:43

correctly... refuse a deal early

41:45

in the war when things

41:47

were going well for them

41:49

on the advice of their

41:51

big backers in the West.

41:53

So yeah, about a month

41:55

into the war, the Russians

41:57

and Ukrainians sat down for

41:59

ceasefire talks in Istanbul. Secret

42:01

ones, I think. And sometime

42:03

into it, one of the

42:05

lead Ukrainian negotiators, and he

42:07

was with, I want to

42:09

say, he was with the

42:11

military intelligence, the GRU. He

42:13

was murdered by. the SBU,

42:15

the former KGB, of the

42:17

Ukrainians, and then they said

42:20

it was an accident. But

42:22

it's very weird, yeah. So

42:24

what happened in that, we

42:26

know now, we had heard

42:28

this for a while, but

42:30

now we know what happened

42:32

because a lot of the

42:34

participants, including the Ukrainian side

42:36

of spoken, and documents have

42:38

been released. The Ukrainians and

42:40

the Russians came to an

42:42

agreement. The Russians were going

42:44

to pull back to where

42:46

the lines were before the

42:48

full-scale invasion. So they were

42:50

going to still hold on

42:52

to the eastern part of

42:54

Don Bus that they had

42:56

before the invasion, plus Crimea.

42:58

And Ukraine was going to

43:00

agree to neutrality, to change

43:03

it, so that they wouldn't

43:05

align with NATO anymore, and

43:07

that they would federalize, that

43:09

is to say they would

43:11

give more local rights to

43:13

Russian-speaking regions. Basically, kind of

43:15

to implement the Minsk deal

43:17

was pretty much, but... but

43:19

more than that, let's say.

43:21

And they had agreed on

43:23

that, but then they needed

43:25

the American backing, some kind

43:27

of security guarantees or some

43:29

kind of support. And the

43:31

Americans said, why stop now?

43:33

You're doing so well. The

43:35

Russians are on their backfoot.

43:37

The Americans didn't want to

43:39

give any kind of security

43:41

guarantees, and they were so

43:43

happy with what was going

43:46

on. They didn't want to

43:48

stop it. And then Boris

43:50

Johnson. you know, the prime

43:52

minister at the time was

43:54

tasked by Biden to go

43:56

out there and personally deliver

43:58

that message to Zelenski. Keep

44:00

the war going. You've got

44:02

there. on the run, you

44:04

guys are kicking ass. I'm

44:06

blown away, you're heroes. And

44:08

so yeah, we sink it

44:10

then. And there was some

44:12

talk of maybe trying to

44:14

get negotiations going in the

44:16

fall when Ukraine after the

44:18

Harkiv, after they took all

44:20

that territory, we took it

44:22

in Harkiv. And Russia was

44:24

at kind of its lowest

44:27

point. And I just remember

44:29

there was the squad in

44:31

the Democratic Party. So, you

44:33

know, the AOCs and Rashida

44:35

Talib, and some of these

44:37

handful of more progressive Democrats

44:39

issued an open letter. This

44:41

was like, I know, September,

44:43

October of 2022, saying we,

44:45

you know, we call on

44:47

Biden to start negotiations. We

44:49

got to end this war.

44:51

It's dangerous. and they were

44:53

slammed. They were called traders,

44:55

they were destroyed. And what

44:57

did they do being Democrats?

44:59

They withdrew the letter and

45:01

said they completely support Biden

45:03

and Lincoln and they apologized.

45:05

And so, yeah, that was,

45:07

that was. It's strange. Like,

45:10

if there were a few

45:12

real fighters like FDR among

45:14

them, it would make all

45:16

the difference, but then I

45:18

suppose certain, I mean, it's,

45:20

you gotta think like an

45:22

evolutionary biologist, certain. kinds of

45:24

species don't come to be

45:26

in certain environments. And like,

45:28

you're not going to get

45:30

someone like that in Congress.

45:32

Yeah. So where we're at

45:34

right now, I mean, you

45:36

know, on the positive side,

45:38

like, whatever else you say

45:40

about Trump, if he gets

45:42

a ceasefire, that's a hell

45:44

of a lot more than

45:46

Biden did, you know, very

45:48

actively. And it's going to

45:50

make the entire center-center-left establishment

45:53

class. in Western Europe and

45:55

the US look just terrible.

45:57

Like ignorant vampires. like who

45:59

bathe in blood, but you

46:01

know, they don't do the

46:03

spells, right? So it doesn't

46:05

work. Okay, let's move on

46:07

to just a couple more

46:09

items before we wrap up

46:11

the show. In Syria, we're

46:13

going to try and get

46:15

Cyrus, friend of the show,

46:17

Cyrus, back on to talk

46:19

more about what's happening in

46:21

Syria, what's really gone on

46:23

in Latvia and Tartus with

46:25

the pogroms against the Alawites.

46:27

One thing I will say,

46:29

just from having some back

46:31

and forth with him, he

46:33

confirmed what Grey Zone and

46:36

Max Blumenthal reported, which is

46:38

that at least 4,000 Alawites

46:40

have been killed in this

46:42

book, Groms, and that's true,

46:44

because I've seen some people,

46:46

you know how the whole

46:48

Syrian Revolution insurgency, Dirty War?

46:50

split a lot of the

46:52

left and the Palestine movement.

46:54

It's splitting them again in

46:56

a way. So I saw

46:58

people who are normally aligned

47:00

with Max getting really angry

47:02

that they reported this. But

47:04

Cyrus completely separately from that

47:06

said he's hearing the same

47:08

from sources. So at least

47:10

4,000 killed, many thousands more

47:12

wounded and 200,000 displaced. This

47:14

is huge. Yeah, this would

47:17

be the biggest story of

47:19

the year if those people

47:21

came from a different denomination

47:23

in Syria. Yeah, but they

47:25

are. It's really sickening. That's

47:27

all you can say. It

47:29

is sickening. And I just

47:31

have to say to Max's

47:33

credit, because I was there,

47:35

I saw this. debate that

47:37

he had. We talked about

47:39

in one of our earlier

47:41

radio war. I remember that.

47:43

I've never forgotten that. Like

47:45

what were they doing? They

47:47

were clicking their fingers at

47:49

him or something? Snapping their

47:51

fingers when they supported something

47:53

that, Mortaza Hussain from the

47:55

Intercept said he was very

47:57

much in favor of the...

48:00

of the insurgents of the

48:02

rebels. And Max's point

48:04

was the rebels are

48:07

sectarian reactionaries and they're

48:09

going to murder. This is

48:11

basically NATO breaking, NATO

48:13

and Israel wanting to

48:15

break a long-time unfriendly

48:18

country and replace it

48:20

with, you know, sectarian right-wing extremists.

48:22

And he was right. But boy

48:24

did they hate him. That was

48:26

a shock to me because I

48:29

thought that after the Iraq invasion

48:31

everybody had Had thought like

48:33

I do, which is always a bad

48:35

thought like I do which is let's

48:37

stop all these interventions They all go

48:40

bad, or after Libya, you know, but

48:42

The Brooklyn lefty pro Palestine

48:44

a lot of the pro

48:46

Palestine crowd not Ali Abunema

48:48

Not Max not a few others, but

48:50

a lot of them were very much

48:52

with the Syrian rebels and

48:55

just savagely, savage Max,

48:57

and Ron Yacolic and Ali

48:59

and so on. But anyway, Max

49:01

tweeted out a few days ago,

49:03

you know, along with footage of,

49:05

you might have seen this, you

49:07

know, HTS forcing all the white

49:09

men to crawl and bark like

49:12

dogs around corpses and they

49:14

were getting beaten and probably

49:16

executed after the video

49:18

like the other corpses.

49:20

Max wrote, thinking today about

49:23

all the trot academic

49:25

types, Brooklyn-based intercept and

49:27

nation writers, and Sorossi

49:29

professional activists who rapidly

49:31

denounced me and others

49:33

for warning, this would

49:35

be the inevitable result

49:37

of a hobby-led regime change in

49:40

Syria. Where are they now? Well, Charles

49:42

Lister right now is heading, literally

49:44

as we speak, as we're recording

49:46

this, a... conference in Washington

49:48

DC at the Middle East

49:50

Institute funded by the Gulf

49:53

dictatorships. It's called Reimaging Syria

49:55

a roadmap for peace and

49:57

prosperity beyond Assad and it's

50:00

with the Atlantic Council

50:02

and something called the

50:05

European Institute of Peace.

50:07

And anyway, we'll have more

50:09

to say about this, but

50:11

we want to say something

50:13

about Balochistan, where there

50:16

was this in the

50:19

Balochistan liberation army pulled

50:21

off this incredible. Yeah,

50:23

yeah, I mean, Balochistan

50:26

is. a topic we're going to

50:28

have to get to one of

50:30

these days because it's a big

50:32

topic and it's going to heat

50:34

up sooner or later. In fact,

50:36

it probably is heating up now.

50:39

I mean, Balochistan

50:41

is just one of those

50:43

regions that doesn't get much

50:45

attention. It's part of Pakistan,

50:48

it's part of Eastern Iran.

50:50

Just imagine that somebody

50:52

spread paint over the...

50:54

the Southwestern part of

50:57

Pakistan the southern part

50:59

of Afghanistan

51:01

and the South Eastern part

51:04

of Iran and that

51:07

became Balochistan It's

51:09

it's very unlucky in

51:11

geopolitical terms to have

51:14

those borders and it

51:16

has been for quite

51:18

a while The Baloch

51:21

were displaced when

51:23

Pakistan was created

51:26

because Pakistan, we

51:28

must remember, was

51:30

created in the same

51:32

year as Israel and they

51:35

have a lot in common.

51:37

They were dominated

51:39

by a foreign elite

51:41

that imported itself

51:44

and took over the

51:46

country and the Cindy

51:48

as the or sometimes

51:50

called, we're a little

51:53

stunned by this, for a

51:55

while they went along with

51:57

it in terms of the

52:00

You know solidarity with fellow

52:02

Muslims who they

52:04

thought were victimized

52:06

during the Indian

52:09

Pakistani partition

52:11

But eventually they

52:13

got tired of

52:15

being excluded from

52:17

the Pakistani elite

52:19

So they've been mounting

52:22

a slow guerrilla campaign,

52:24

but then guerrilla campaigns

52:27

usually start small

52:30

Big and finally spectacularly

52:32

big and this

52:34

was probably the

52:36

the most spectacular

52:39

attack of the Baloch

52:41

liberation army. They Bombed

52:43

a train if you ever see a

52:45

train bombed like you know

52:48

the scenes in Lawrence

52:50

of Arabia. We're talking

52:52

about that. We're talking

52:54

about an express train

52:56

with 450 passengers going

52:58

from Keta in the south

53:00

of Pakistan to Peshawar,

53:03

in the far north of

53:05

Pakistan, along the Afghan border,

53:07

which is hundreds of

53:10

miles long there. And

53:12

it's a very arid region,

53:14

looks very much like Lawrence

53:16

of Arabia, but they bombed

53:19

the train. From the

53:21

video that was posted, it

53:23

looks to me like they

53:25

didn't exactly bomb

53:27

the... the locomotive they bombed one

53:29

car behind it right now why

53:31

they might have tried to get

53:33

the locomotive and got the car

53:35

yeah or maybe not yeah a

53:38

matter of timing you know yeah

53:40

come on it's my first try

53:42

like give me a little practice

53:44

so they they they yeah the

53:46

guy may have hit the the

53:48

trigger a little later because

53:50

they're they supplied the below

53:53

deliberation normally they

53:55

supplied a video of video

53:57

of the bomb going off

53:59

as train goes through the

54:01

wasteland and then

54:04

they supplied helpfully a

54:06

video of their command

54:08

post on a hill overlooking

54:11

the train and that

54:13

was probably where somebody

54:16

connected a couple of

54:18

wires and blew up the

54:20

train. So after that

54:22

some passengers were killed but

54:25

then the survivors were marched

54:27

out of the to be

54:29

guarded and originally

54:32

designed to be taken

54:35

away and held as

54:37

hostages by the guerrillas.

54:40

You can see them in

54:42

the video on the side

54:44

of the track just

54:46

being herded away from

54:49

the train. But at

54:51

some point the

54:53

Pakistani army decided

54:56

to intervene. And

54:58

by all accounts, that

55:00

was a pretty bloody

55:03

operation, like killing

55:05

the Pakistani army

55:07

claims they killed,

55:09

I think, 25

55:11

of the Baloch

55:13

army guerrillas and

55:16

many, many passengers

55:18

were killed either

55:20

by the Pakistani army.

55:22

or the Baloch liberation

55:24

army or both, which

55:26

is the usual case

55:29

in a chaotic hostage seizure

55:31

like this? Yeah, for more

55:33

in-depth on the Balochistan

55:35

insurgencies, we did a

55:37

Radio Warner episode 168.

55:39

I'll post a link

55:42

on Balochistan insurgency, doing

55:44

some history on it

55:46

with great guests, these

55:48

long wars, a Karachi-based,

55:51

a Karachi-based blogger. And

55:53

God, man, we recorded

55:55

that in early 2019. That's

55:57

all, that seems like a.

55:59

That is a long time ago.

56:02

I was still in New York

56:04

City back then. Yeah. Yeah. I

56:06

thought I thought we did that

56:08

more recently, but that was

56:10

that was still. But as

56:13

we were saying before we got

56:15

to this story, a lot

56:17

of guerrilla wars start small

56:20

and there weren't a

56:22

lot of big Baloch

56:24

operations. And I mean, the

56:26

traditional move is you.

56:28

get the guns from rural

56:30

police stations, and then you

56:32

use the guns to get

56:35

more guns, and then, because

56:37

you usually have more volunteers

56:40

than you have guns. And

56:42

then finally you stage the

56:45

big operation. It may be

56:47

different here because since

56:49

they're Baloch on the Afghan

56:52

as well as the Pakistani

56:54

side of the border. the

56:57

Pakistani government has argued

56:59

for a long time that

57:01

Afghanistan is helping these people.

57:04

I'm not totally sure

57:06

about Baloch Pashtun relations

57:08

in general because sooner

57:10

or later everybody every group

57:12

quarrels with every other in

57:14

Afghanistan, but I think in

57:17

general they get along fairly

57:19

well. Well, but Pakistan has

57:21

not been getting along well

57:23

with the Taliban-led government. no

57:26

lately like very much not

57:28

so so yeah so so

57:30

it could well be that

57:33

they're benefiting from an alliance

57:35

with the Afghan Taliban

57:37

right okay I think we

57:39

can wrap it up here

57:42

thanks again everyone and thanks

57:44

John and Brendan and talk

57:46

to you all again soon okay

57:48

thanks everybody bye